Bethuel Mangena ignored high school teachers who told him to look for a ”respectable” job — and has not looked back.
Choosing to study fine art, he is now one of South Africa’s most promising cartoonists and, at 26, one of the youngest practitioners of this most difficult journalistic art.
”My teachers asked me what I was going to do after studying art; they told me I was going to stand on pavements trying to sell my works. But I had a teacher who had studied art, I think at Fort Hare, who encouraged me and gave me tips on how to improve.”
Mangena counts among his mentors the Mail & Guardian’s inimitable Zapiro and the British grandmaster of the political barb, Steve Bell of The Guardian.
He draws for Sunday World — this, too, by a twist of fate. Forced to drop out of his art studies, he turned to a different kind of draftsmanship to mitigate the sadness of not finishing what he had started.
”I was studying fine arts at Wits, but couldn’t finish because of financial difficulties. That’s what inspired me to look for a job at Sunday World.”
This week the work of Mangena and nine other political cartoonists from South Africa and the United Kingdom went on exhibition at Johannesburg’s MuseumAfrica in Newtown.
Earlier this year, he and other local cartoonists travelled to the UK by invitation of the British Council, where, hosted by Steve Bell, they attended the Labour Party conference in Brighton and met aspiring British cartoonists.
The group was then hosted by Zapiro on a return trip to South Africa.
The MuseumAfrica exhibition — where he was constantly at Zapiro’s side — is the fruit of this contact and mentorship.
Mangena says his main source of inspiration was his mother, who died as he was on the brink of breaking through as a cartoonist. He had promised her that he would make it as an artist.
”She was very ill. I thought I would impress her by telling her that I was going to an international cartoonists’ conference in London, but she didn’t respond. When she died, I lost someone who really cared about me.”
Mangena’s winding path started in Lulekani township in Phalaborwa, Limpopo, where his father was a mineworker. As a child, he supplemented his family’s income by drawing pictures for spaza shop owners.
His artistic ability found expression and encouragement at primary school. ”In sub B a teacher gave us reading books with pictures of animals. When she took them back, she found I had drawn pictures on them.
”Instead of punishing me, she was happy with my drawings. Later on, I would draw pictures of my favourite movie stars and musicians.”
These days he studies computer animation. And to prove that he is worthy of the R30 000-a-year scholarship from the National Film and Video Foundation, Mangena points to Samsung’s television advert featuring a dancing meerkat which he designed.
As a youngster he hated politics, he says. ”But these days I read at least three newspapers a day and listen to all the news bulletins. I don’t mind listening to news every hour.
”I’ve grown to love the world of politics. If you don’t understand it, you don’t understand your country,” he says quite seriously.
A modest young man, he insists his aim is not to offend, but to get people to laugh at themselves.
Mangena may be riding the crest of a wave, but he does not think he has arrived yet. ”I’m lucky to have the Sunday World job. I’m sure there’s a lot of talent in South Africa. It doesn’t bother me, I’m the best.”